


Should've Known

by DarlingOfDathomir



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: Kylux Cantina, Kylux - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 04:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingOfDathomir/pseuds/DarlingOfDathomir
Summary: A little drabble of despair I did for a "letter found" prompt from Kylux Cantina.I can't decide if I'm being weepy or if it's super sad or not. If it is, I'm sorry for what I did to your faceI just want to hug Hux :( <3





	Should've Known

Hux didn’t have to read it to know who it was from. It looked like it was folded to sit upright, but Millicent must have knocked it flat in her (forbidden) shelf climbing. He retrieved the folded piece of parchment from the floor and gently opened it, running a finger along the calligraphy as he read it.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before speaking. “You know… things were just starting to get better.”

He lowered the paper to see Kylo Ren standing before him staring at him, silent.

“You _promised_ me, Ren.” Hux angrily shook the parchment in his face, his voice rising to a crescendo. “You kriffing promised me! It’s right here! In your own damn pen! You always went on about how you'd never lie to me- well what is this then?!” He went to crumple the paper and throw it at him, but despite his hands shaking with rage... he just couldn’t do it.   
  
He looked up into the sullen brown eyes staring down at him, his voice now soft, pleading. “Please, Ren. I need this to be real, I… I _need_ this, just once, to be real.”   
  
Hux gently tugged the glove off his hand and reached up with trembling fingers to brush a lock of hair from Kylo’s cheek.   
  
_Please be real_   
  
And then he was gone.   
  
Hux stumbled through the space where the apparition once stood, falling against the cold window that looked out into space. His shoulders shook as he sobbed, a guttural cry ripped from his throat.   
  
“You should never have gone to the kriffing planet, you bastard, I _told_ you not to go. I should have known you wouldn’t listen, I-I should have known better, I… _I should have known!”_   
  
As he howled like a wounded animal, tears and transparisteel were the only thing separating his face from the stars.   
  
  
_This is all my fault_   
  
It was clearly too good to be true, but ever impulsive with his strike-first ask-the-burning-rubble-questions-later method of handing things, Kylo had insisted on going planet-side to collect the scavenger himself. Since his mother’s passing it had seemed something had come loose inside of him.   
  
Something Hux had tried time and time again to fix, but couldn’t. Not for lack of trying, but because Kylo wouldn’t let him. Any mention of what happened and his grief surrounding it got shut down in a heartbeat. Any further prodding devolved into him storming from the room and Kylo off sulking for the remainder of the day.   
  
When Kylo wouldn’t drop his idea of a boots on the ground mission instead of waiting on recon to answer back, Hux insinuated that there might be a little more behind him wanting to go in saber blazing. It was enough to send Kylo off on one of his brooding spells- or at least that’s what Hux had thought. He didn’t get notice of his departure until well after his ship had left the hangar.   
  
“Because that’s the kind of person he is… person he was. I should have known what that idiot was going to do, but I was too busy being angry. I should have known. I could have stopped it.”   
  
“No, Armitage. You have to stop putting this on yourself. It’s war. In war, people die ... no matter how much we love them.” He leant back into the wall, covering the exposed side of his face with his hand, as if the glove could hide his sorrow. Phasma heard a ragged gasp as he fought for air between sobs; she knelt down, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, I need you to get up and come with me, it’s time to go.”   


Phasma helped him get settled into the condo on Arkanis.  She insisted that he needed time to grieve, and that neither his men nor his enemies needed to see him in the state he was in.   
  
She was right, she was always right.   
  
After threatening to physically _make_ him eat, Hux nibbled on a piece of bread before retiring for the night. The sun had barely set, but he was tired.   
  
He was always tired now.   
  
His mind walked the strange plane between sleep and consciousness when he felt a presence at the edge of his awareness. His golden eyelashes fluttered open to reveal a large, black figure at the end of his bed.   
  
No.   
  
“I left the Finalizer in hopes I wouldn’t be haunted anymore. You're dead, Ren.”   
  
The figure slowly approached his side of the bed, and in a panic Hux lunged for the drawer of his nightstand, fumbling through the contents to find a syringe filled with sedative to help him sleep. It was the only thing that had been keeping the nightmares at bay.   
  
“No… no no no…” he was desperate to find it, he didn’t want to see its face. Reminding himself that it was all in his head did nothing to stop the pain that came with seeing his face again.   
  
A massive hand wrapped around his wrist. “You know I don’t like you using that stuff.”   
  
Hux’s heart was pounding in his chest, his voice barely a whisper. “You’re _dead_ , Ren.”   
  
“I promised you I’d come back, didn’t I?”   
  
Without looking up, Hux slowly slipped out from under the covers, pink toes planted in front of large black boots. A gloved finger lifted his chin.   
  
The side of his face the lightsaber scar crossed had been badly burned in an explosion, a patch covering his eye.   
  
Hux held his breath as he reached up and ran a finger down the bandages. He didn’t disappear.   
  
“If this is madness, I pray it takes me.”   
  
A smile tugged at the corner of Kylo’s mouth. “You’ve always been mad.”   
  
Instead of the cold press of metal, a warm tunic absorbed his tears as he cried against the man he loved. He'd never known a joy that hurt so sweetly.  


End file.
